As odd as it was for Jaques Tati’s 1953 Monsieur Hulot's Holiday to pretty easily distill what roughly everyone on the face of the earth was at the time after – and remains so today – there wasn’t any sort of plot evident throughout the film. It was just a series of slung together vignettes with a comedic punchline at the end prior to moving on to the next scene.

Of course, Tati’s earlier film, Jour de fête, trafficked in roughly the same construction and to no lesser effect. But apart from one scene in the earlier film where Tati struggles to mount his bike in a hurry so as to continue on his way delivering mail, this second effort forms more of a cohesive hole. So while there isn’t any specific plot, M. Hulot threads each scene together while there’s something of a culmination at the end of the film.

One of the earlier gags, that’s actually revisited again towards the end of the feature, finds Hulot cloistered and ignored (as per usual) ready to listen to a record. Of course, since the character ostensibly functions in his own sort of dream world, he’s unaware that the majority of the hotel’s guests are seated in an adjacent room appreciating quite time. The dull scene, in which various other vacationing folks sit around and read, knit, play cards or otherwise entertain themselves is loudly interrupted by the crash of drums and a horn section. All involved – including Hulot, when the guests barge into his room – jump up from the start until the power’s cut off relegating the hotel to a new silence.

Sound in this feature, though, becomes as important as the myriad visual gags despite the scant dialogue throughout. As guests assemble to appreciate a meal in the dining room, with Hulot off by himself again, the waiter enters and exits through a door that everyone else is making use of as well. It’s a swinging door emitting a popping noise each time some one comes and goes. And while it’s not the most pleasant noise, it wouldn’t really be noticeable in a room where anything but silence reigns. In this odd vacuum, everyone becomes acutely aware of the apparent distraction leaving the cook little choice but to prop open the entry way. No, that doesn’t sound funny in print, but Tati is able to make the minutiae of daily life come alive in a humorous way that not too many other directors have every been able to fully grasp.